His left hand is now a stiff claw; it's not going to help him earn a living ever again. He is only 26 years old, according to his passport. Fifteen months ago, on January 9, 2011, Johir was at work on a construction site switching or attaching some parts to what he called "the mouth"

Vikram (not his real name) came to Transient Workers Count Too regarding an injury for which his boss was reluctant to provide proper medical care. But that's not what this story is about. Just to make sure that at least other aspects of his working life were in order, we asked about the regularity of

In Mohamed and Bilal have gone is the story of two of 56 men laid off because their employer reportedly failed to pay the government's foreign worker levy. When so many workers are affected, several groups of men come to Transient Workers Count Too at different times. They end up speaking to different volunteers. So it was

This senior gentleman is scrutinising the back of Debbie Fordyce's name card. He's probably wondering: What exactly does this woman do? What mischief does she get up to? Meanwhile, she's seated less than two metres away, smiling politely, but silent as a cat on velvet – as the saying goes. The back of the card

Last November, Minister of State for Manpower Tan Chuan-jin involved himself personally in a raid conducted against substandard accommodation for foreign workers. In a Facebook post, the minister described the conditions he saw as “abysmal.” I visited Mohamed’s and Bilal's house before they were sent home to Bangladesh this week – they told me they were crammed there with

We at Transient Workers Count Too spend a lot of time talking and counseling men who are desperate to stay and work in Singapore, trying to find out how their cases are progressing and what can be done to help them come to terms with an often brutal bureaucracy. Regular readers will know how painful this

5:30 pm. Our social workers Kenneth Soh and Raymond Ang were tidying up their desks -- not to go home, but to set off to Little India where Transient Workers Count Too's soup kitchen operates. Then the phone rang. A worker, speaking in Chinese, introduced himself and said he had a huge problem. "My name